Current Events > Fierce twitter SMACKDOWN between renewable energy experts just went down

(+) Yeah! (+)

Basically this renewable energy expert named Mark Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere and Energy department at Stanford and a pretty famous dude, wrote this paper on what a system with 100% renewable energy would look like in the year 2055.

A group of other experts, led by a bold hero from the University of Colorado Boulder named Christopher Clack, just published a rebuttal to his paper yesterday and thus begins the twitter smackdown. I'll post some pics to illustrate the timeline of events

Professor Mark Jacobson publishes his original paper:




A group of experts, led by Christopher Clack, publishes their rebuttal:




Mark Jacobson immediately lashes out and dismisses the paper as "intentionally scientifically fraudulent". Shots fired!




Clack responds by calmly stating Mark's paper was full of errors and mistakes.




Mark doubles down on his accusations of SCIENTIFIC FRAUD and then claims that Clack is only doing this because he's pissed that his own research isn't getting enough attention! BAM!




As the crowds start to gather around the fight, Clack takes a deep breath and remains calm, remaining steadfast in his commitment to the facts. He wants to appear above the personal attacks, and he wants to make himself as clear as possible. Mark is claiming he can bring the existing dams to a power level of 1,300 GW from their current 145.16 by installing these additional turbines... Clack says this power level is impossible. Nobody can reach that power level. Nobody.






Mark digs his heels in and gets nasty. Clack is a "DATA FAKER" cries Mark. He was told about the additional power level in an email in February! He's a FAKER!

But then suddenly a lone member of the crowd calls out "Come on Mark. This is Trumpian."




Realizing that he is starting to lose the favor of the crowd to his seemingly more honorable opponent, Mark reevaluates his strategy. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a dusty old record of an email and shows it to the crowd. This email "proves" that Clack and his gang of heroes MUST have known about the assumptions, and therefore must have falsified the data.

In this email, Mark tries to dodge his opponents strikes by claiming that he "did neglect to clarify that increased the number of generators/turbines for each hydro plant (without increasing the dam capacity) and neglected to include the additional cost..."

He then turns it back on his opponent by claiming Clack was intentionally misrepresenting the data by claiming to be unaware of these assumptions when he in fact knew about it the entire time.




Clack takes a moment to compose himself and then carefully fires back with a well-aimed graph. A series of quick blows is exchanged between the two in a flurry of fists. The assumptions don't matter because it's still wrong, he says.






ENTER JESSE JENKINS, climate researcher from MIT and a titan in his own right. Jesse walks slowly into the ring... Who does he stand beside? The famed Mark Jacobson or Christopher Clack and his gang of assorted heroes?

With a complete calmness and zen-like focus that amazes everyone who beholds it, Jesse Jenkins places himself at the forefront of the party of heroes, and then unleashes a series of decisive finishing blows.




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The crowd begins to solidify around Christopher Clack, Jesse Jenkins, and the other assorted heroes who have risen to stand against the now seemingly absurd Mark Jacobson. Members of the crowd start to join in and throw punches of their own, and with good force to back it up.




And the response from the camp of Mark Jacobson now that he appears to have lost the fight? He stops responding. The people start murmor that he is blocking people on twitter.




Not content with being completely silent though, he starts to retweet his supporters, including a picture of himself posing in a sexy poncho. Who doesn't love ponchos? He also got the environmental site EcoWatch to publish a more formal rebuttal to the claims of his opponents, which he retweets.






Despite the onslaught, Mark Jacobson will not take one step down from his assertions. What will be the end of this story? Will this saga spell the end of the career of the once illustrious Mark Jacobson? Will the deeds of Christopher Clack and his band of heroes go down in history? Or could the people end up rallying behind Mark Jacobson, now the likely underdog in this fight? Only time will tell...

If anyone is interested, here are links to the two papers, and then Mark's written rebuttal to the rebuttal:


Mark Jacobson's original paper - http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/06/16/1708069114.extract

Christopher Clack et. al's rebuttal - http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/06/16/1610381114.abstract

Mark's rebuttal rebuttal - https://www.ecowatch.com/pnas-jacobson-renewable-energy-2444465393.html
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this is awesome
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Who got called Hitler first?
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This is nothing new, imagine what the twitter war between Edison and Tesla would have been like.
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Fucking nerds
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so mark just wants his funding and is going to lie to get it?
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darkphoenix181 posted...

so mark just wants his funding and is going to lie to get it?

Or they both believe they are right.
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The Rock layin the Smackdown
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Turbam posted...

The Rock layin the Smackdown

smh

smackethdown
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lmao
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mathematical
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Turbam posted...

The Rock layin the Smackdown

It's the Jenkins in this case who deals the finishing move ;)
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In a new development, one of Mark Jacobson's coauthors is now claiming that the actions of the researchers who wrote the rebuttal is an exhibit of why women leave academia. Gender politics have now entered the debate it seems.


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LMAO

I love gender politics

This is legitimately interesting
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lmfao

dat gender politics
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I should have listened in school
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Considering the low amount of retweets and comments, is this your field of research TC?
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This is a quality topic with a great first post.
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pinky0926 posted...

Considering the low amount of retweets and comments, is this your field of research TC?

It is, but from the standpoint of the private sector and not as a professional academic

Cilym posted...

This is a quality topic with a great first post.

Thank you ;)
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CLICK! CLACK!

(caps)
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Who cares?
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UnfairRepresent posted...

This is legitimately interesting

Cilym posted...

This is a quality topic with a great first post.

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Did anyone explain where the 1,300GW of power comes from? Besides "more turbines at existing dams!" I mean.

Cause if you multiplied every dam we have by 15, we still wouldn't have 1,300GW.
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ChromaticAngel posted...

Did anyone explain where the 1,300GW of power comes from? Besides "more turbines at existing dams!" I mean.

Cause if you multiplied every dam we have by 15, we still wouldn't have 1,300GW.

I think the "more turbines at existing dams!" part was the crux of how he planned to do that. It would also require massively building up water, apparently 5000x the water Hoover Dam can hold behind it according to the guy who uploaded the pen and paper math. That was being generous too, because it assumed that all the water would be able to fall the entire height of the dam (which isn't true, that's only true for the water at the very top).

There are a few reasons why this is crazy. The obvious one is that it is way more power capacity added to existing dams than is believed possible. Secondly, the water assumptions apparently aren't realistic at all either.
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giantblimpN7 posted...

Fucking nerds

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Sativa_Rose posted...

The obvious one is that it is way more power capacity added to existing dams than is believed possible.

I mean I think the most obvious problem would be that even if you could add that many turbines, the cost and resultant pollution / other ecological problems resulting from fucking around with water flows.

I can see it now "Good news and bad news guys! Good news! We no longer need any more fossil fuels for anything! Bad news, everything downhill from the rockies and appalachians is a desert."
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ChromaticAngel posted...

I can see it now "Good news and bad news guys! Good news! We no longer need any more fossil fuels for anything! Bad news, everything downhill from the rockies and appalachians is a desert."

lol, well that will never happen thankfully. The problem is really what are we going to do with January. January is the worst month in North America when it comes to wind and solar. So how are we going to generate electricity in January? I think it's going to be either hydrogen or synthetic natural gas (which is mainly made up of methane). I don't think it will be battery storage because you'd basically have to charge them up in the summer and then keep them sitting around for up to 6 months, and batteries need to be regularly cycled (not just twice a year) to be profitable.
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That was great. I don't fully understand this field, but it was still pretty cool to see the experts go at it.
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i liked how the TC narrated it
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ChromaticAngel posted...

Did anyone explain where the 1,300GW of power comes from? Besides "more turbines at existing dams!" I mean.

Cause if you multiplied every dam we have by 15, we still wouldn't have 1,300GW.

Alternative sources
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Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrds!
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lmao
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CEs_EFG posted...

i liked how the TC narrated it

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